I had a very interesting and uplifting event in my life yesterday. As you know from this blog (the thousands of you who actually read it), I am the publisher and editor of Down The Stretch, Canada’s most entertaining and informative horse racing newspaper. We put out 14 issues last year and have definitely created a buzz in the horse racing community. What we haven’t yet accomplished is to attract sufficient advertising to make the paper a profitable enterprise. This is not unusual in Canadian publishing; I was warned that it would take at least two years  to break even. 

So yesterday, Down The Stretch art director Gord Steventon and I embarked on a project designed to increase our advertising.  On the east side of highway 7, directly across from Woodbine Racetrack are a couple of car dealerships, each employing the Woodbine name – Woodbine Pontiac and Woodbine Toyota. Figuring that each of these enterprises wishes to identify itself geographically with the track, Gord and I marched proudly into the lobby, our specs, rates and latest issue neatly packaged to be handed over to the presiding general manager.

At each place – Pontiac and Toyota, we were greeted by pleasant young women at reception, each advising us that neither the general manager, nor the sales manager was in.  So we left our package and took a business card, promising we’d call later. Actually, I said I would harass them mercilessly and then Gord grabbed me by the collar to minimize any further public relations disaster.

That’s when I had my brainstorm.

“Let’s go to 401-Dixie Nissan!” I exclaimed.

“Why?” asked Gord

“Greg Carrasco,” I answered. “He does all those commercials on 680News. Maybe he’ll recognize me.”

As it turns out, the 401 and Dixie is ground zero for car dealerships. The Nissan office is a compact bright place, and as soon as we entered the lobby, I saw the instantly recognizable Greg Carrasco in a glassed office behind the receptionist. Carrasco does his own ads on tv and on 680News in over the top, tons of personality fashion. His charasmatic smile and close cropped beard make him one of those guys who stands out in your memory.

“Tell him it’s Peter Gross from 680 News to see him,” I instruct the young lady and Gord and I were instantly welcomed to Carasco’s office. I laid out my battle plan .

“You’re an unusual guy and so is Down The Stretch,” I began. “We’re looking for an important automobile dealership to feature in our advertising.”

Carrasco flashed a humour-filled smile.

“You’ve got three problems here,” he warned. ” One, I own horses, but I don’t like horse racing. Two, we never buy print. And three, this is very bad time for the economy.”

I’m not that easily discouraged.

“Do you have your own horses?” I asked and almost immediately, Carrasco had opened up a file on his desktop to show me his wife and daughter on a couple of beautiful riding horses.

“I assume you’re opposed to horse slaughter,” I said and I noticed a marketable change in his posture.

“Of course,” he answered. “My wife is very much into animal welfare.”

That was the opening I needed.  I pointed out that Down The Stretch is the voice against horse slaughter in Canada, that we had won the Sovereign Award for a feature story we wrote on Alex Brown, the most skilled advocate for the anti-horse slaughter movement. I showed him the three articles from our most recent issue that dealt with the subject. I was seriously implying that if he was really a proponent of animal welfare and safety, he needed to put the 401 Dixie Nissan money where his mouth was.

And then the clincher. As he dealt over the phone with a minor customer problem, I looked under the desk and saw clearly the real Greg Carrasco – he was wearing mismatched socks.

When he got off the phone, I confronted him.

“You’re wearing two different socks.”

“That’s right. I like being odd,” he responded proudly.

“Take a look at our paper,” I told him. “We’re different too.” And then, for the next five minutes, he turned the pages. I think he could see the kind of paper we’re putting out.

“I have an idea, ” he announced. “I’ll buy a full page. Just one issue. I’ll know very soon if it works or not.  I’ll do a three-quarter page ad and my wife will write a small ‘advertorial’ on animal welfare.”

Gord and I had to stifle our ecstacy as we left. I think it was probably a first for both of us. At least the first for me since the early 60s when I made 10 cents a paper selling Globe and Mail subscriptions door to door.

By the way, if you’re running a car dealership, you might want to be privy to something Carrasco told us. He became manager of 401 Dixie Nissan about five years ago and experimented by buying one week of ads on 680News.

“The next week was the biggest we had had all year,” he admitted. 

Yeah, well wait until the week after your ad shows up in Down The Stretch, Greg!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 7:44 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.